Klaus Gottstein

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Klaus Gottstein (born January 25, 1924 in Stettin ; † March 20, 2020 in Gauting ) was a German physicist and peace researcher .

Life

After graduating from high school in Berlin-Dahlem, Gottstein studied physics at the University of Göttingen . He completed his studies in 1951 with a diploma. He then conducted research at the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Göttingen in the experimental department of Karl Wirtz , where Martin Teucher evaluated core emulsion plates with orbits of particles from cosmic radiation - at that time the main source of high-energy particles before the rise of particle accelerators. He had already got to know this technique in Bristol in 1950 and 1951 from the Nobel Prize winner Cecil Powell . In 1953 he received his doctorate in Göttingen with a dissertation on heavy nuclei in cosmic radiation and their reactions, evaluating measurement results from balloon experiments in Italy under Powell and Edoardo Amaldi . After Teucher left, Gottstein headed the Göttingen core emulsion group. In addition to the cosmic radiation, he evaluated plate recordings from experiments at the linear accelerator in Stanford , where Gottstein was doing research in 1955. He also conducted research at the Cosmotron in Brookhaven and the Bevatron in Berkeley. In 1956/57 he learned about bubble chamber technology from Luis Walter Alvarez in Berkeley . Soon afterwards, the group around Gottstein evaluated bubble chamber recordings. These were then also the subject of his habilitation in Munich (1960), where the Max Planck Institute for Physics had moved. From 1961 he was a scientific member of the MPI for Physics and in 1965 became head of the experimental department. In 1966 a second experimental department was founded under Ulrich Stierlin . From 1969 Gottstein shared the management with Norbert Schmitz .

Around 1970 he turned to socio-political tasks in physics and science administration. From 1971 to 1974 he was science attaché at the German Embassy in Washington DC Afterwards he worked on behalf of Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker in the Advisory Committee for Research and Technology (BAFT) of the Federal Republic and worked at Weizsäcker's Starnberg Max Planck Institute for research the living conditions of the scientific and technical world until his retirement in 1980.

In 1976 Gottstein became the spokesman for the German Pugwash group. He dealt with arms control , energy supply, East-West cooperation (including within the framework of the CSCE ) and technologies for developing countries. From 1983 to 1991 he was in the German UNESCO Commission and from 1981 to 1983 in the Advisory Committee for Science and Technology of UNESCO . From 1983 until his retirement in 1992 he headed the Gottstein Research Center in the Max Planck Society , which dealt with issues at the interface between science and politics. This research center, which was located in an office building on Frankfurter Ring in Munich, was closed in 1992. Topics in the 1980s included the US SDI program and questions of east-west strategy. On the German side, he was significantly involved in the Amaldi conferences on arms control. In 1992 he was retired; as emeritus Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society he got a job at the University of the Federal Armed Forces near Munich. From 1989 to 1995 he headed the Working Group on Culture and Development (AKE), which dealt with foreign cultural policy and development policy.

In 2011 he received the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon .

Klaus Gottstein was the grandson of Leo Gottstein ; his great-uncle was Adolf Gottstein . The physician Ulrich Gottstein is his brother.

Web links

literature

  • Carola Sachse : The Max Planck Society and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (1955–1984). Preprint 479 of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, 2016 ( mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de PDF).
  • Klaus Gottstein, Andreas Henneka, Martin Kalinowski, Götz Neuneck, Ulrike Wunderle: 50 Years of the Göttingen Declaration - 50 Years of Pugwash Conferences Scientists for Peace . In: Information Center Science and Peace (Ed.): Science & Peace Dossier . No. 55 , 2007 ( Wissenschaft-und-frieden.de ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung of April 4, 2020, obituaries (p. 26)
  2. ^ K. Gottstein: The Amaldi Conferences. Their Past and Their Potential Future (=  preprints of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science . No. 431 ). Berlin 2012, arxiv : 1109.1572 ( mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de [PDF]).
  3. ^ Foreword in Ulrich Koppitz, Alfons Labisch Adolf Gottstein. Springer Verlag 1999.
personal data
SURNAME Gottstein, Klaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist and peace researcher
DATE OF BIRTH January 25, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Szczecin
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 2020
Place of death Gauting